Sept. 30, 1886] 
NATURE 
523 
the results of my two explorations of the Australian Alps, 
and described numerous indubitable traces of prehistoric 
glaciers on Mount Kosciusco and on Mount Bogong." 
Mr. Brown, Government Geologist of South Australia, 
has furnished me with photographs of beautifully pre- 
served striz on rocks in the Mount Lofty group near 
Adelaide. Prof. Hutton 2 has taken objection to the con- 
clusions arrived at by myself, and although he acknow- 
ledges a G/acéer period in Australia, objects to its having 
been a Glacial period. If I now revise the facts stated 
by others, and compare them with my own observations, 
I hope I may be able to give some idea as to the time 
and extent of the Glacial period in Australia. Before 
entering on the subject, however, I must give an outline 
of the physiography of the Australian Alps. 
The greater part of Australia is destitute of high 
mountains; only in the south-eastern corner we meet 
with greater elevations. Here a true Alpine chain is 
situated. These Australian Alps consist of numerous 
parallel chains extending from south to north, which are 
curved in such a way as to advance with their convex 
sides eastward. The Australian Alps are very old ; only 
Palzozoic formations participate in the folding which runs 
parallel to the extent of the ridges. The predominant 
rocks on the surface are gneiss-granite and Silurian, 
which appears generally in the facies of brown slate. 
Devonian limestones and slates are found; they are, 
however, not common and discordant to the underlying 
Silurian. The stratified rocks are highly folded, and 
usually with a very large dip or vertical. The Silurian 
appears on the surface in elongated islands or bands (com- 
pare the Government geological map of New South 
Wales), which extend parallel to the strike and to the 
main ranges. The coast-line follows precisely the same 
direction as the mountain-ranges, and the contour 
lines on the steep submarine precipice which extends 
down from it also run in the same direction. It appears 
that these mountains have been formed by a process of 
folding consequent on a horizontal pressure acting from 
west to east, and moving the folds in that direction 
away from a centre of depression sétuated in the tuterior 
of Australia. he steep submarine precipice by which 
the land sinks abruptly to a very great depth appears as 
a more recent fault. 
Volcanic action participated in the formation of the Aus- 
tralian Alps, particularly in the vicinity of Mount Bogong. 
The volcanoes which formed the Bogong basalt plains, 
&c., seem to have been active during the early part of 
the Devonian. It appears probable that the upheaval of 
the Australian Alps—the folding—took place between the 
Silurian and Devonian or in the ealy Devonian. Hardly 
any formations later than the Paleozoic take part in the 
formation of the Australian Alps, and those which, like 
the Miocene in the valleys, have been observed, show a 
perfectly undisturbed horizontal stratification. 
It will be seen from this that the Australian Alps are 
very old, much older not only than the European Alps 
and Himalayas, but older also than the New Zealand 
Alps. The effects of erosion are consequently much 
more matured there than in the other mountain systems 
mentioned, and consequently the appearance of these 
mountains is of particular interest. Only here and there 
rocks crop out on the summits of the hills or form steep 
precipices on their sides. Generally speaking, the moun- 
tain forms are very tame, and round. Mountaineering in 
Australia can generally be performed on horseback. The 
basements of high massive elevations only are left. High 
and sharp ridges weathered into series of grotesque rock 
pinnacles, the characteristic of the much younger Alps of 
Europe, have long since disappeared, and extensive undu- 
lating table-lands now mark the localities where once high 
A detailed account of the results of my explorations will be published in 
the Erganzungshefte zu Petermann's Geografischen Mitthetlungen. 
* Hutton, ‘*The Supposed Glacial Period in Australia,” Proceedings of 
the Linnean Society of New South Wales for 1885. 
peaks have stood. These table-lands are well defined 
and surrounded by steeper inclines, by which they 
descend to the surrounding lowlands. The Kosciusco 
group, from which the highest mountains in Australia 
arise, is a remarkable example of such a table-land, 
extending over an area of 160 square miles, with an 
average height of 5600-6000 feet. 
The highest mountain in Australia, Mount Townsend, 
which I discovered to be the culminating point of Aus- 
tralia, is 7351 feet high.1 There are several other peaks 
in the Kosciusco group over 7000 feet, particularly 
Mueller’s Peak, 7266 feet, which was, up to the time of 
my expedition, considered the highest. Two peaks, which 
I have named Abbott’s Peak and Mount Clarke, are over 
7100 feet high. 
In other parts of the Australian Alps the height of 7000 
feet is nowhere reached. Next in importance to the 
Kosciusco group is the Bogong range, the highest point 
of which was ascended by me this year; it is 6508 feet 
above sea-level. Other peaks on the basaltic plateau 
south of Mount Bogong attain a height of 6000-6400 feet. 
The whole of the Australian Alps consists of several 
hich table-lands divided by very broken and hilly country 
from each other. The lowest levels on the table-lands 
aré usually higher than the hill-tops in the adjacent 
country. The valleys are cut deep into the land. The 
main Alpine valleys have in their upper and middle por- 
tions an elevation of about 2000 feet. Steep gorges and 
waterfalls occur only on the margins of the table-lands. 
Terraces in the valleys themselves are not met with. 
The Australian Alps reach to the sea. The whole of the 
south-eastern coast of Australia is hilly. Towards the west 
and north-west they dive under the Tertiary plains through 
which the Murray River wends its way. In the north 
they terminate on the left bank of the Yass and right 
bank of the Shoalhaven River. The mountainous country 
extends beyond this line to the north-eastern corner of 
Australia with a similar direction of the chains; but in 
this locality the geological structure changes. Extensive 
Triassic and Carboniferous formations take the place of 
the gneiss-granite and Silurian of the Australian Alps 
South-west the Alps may be considered to terminate 
near Melbourne. 
The Australian Alps, from the Murray plain to the sea, 
have a width of about 120 miles on an average, and they 
are, from Melbourne to the Yass River, nearly 400 miles 
long. They are situated between 35° and 39° S. lat. and 
145° and 150° E. long. Their latitude accordingly corre- 
sponds to that of the Sierra Nevada. 
The Australian Alps exercise a vast influence on the 
climate and rainfall, in such a manner that, whilst the 
greater part of Australia south of the zone of tropical 
rains, suffers exceedingly from want of rain, the south-east 
corner—the Alpine part of Australia—has sufficient rain- 
fall for the development of the country. To this climatic 
influence of the Australian Alps the great superiority of 
the colonies of New South Wales and Victoria over all 
the other Australian colonies must be ascribed. 
At Kiandra, situated to the north of the Kosciusco 
group, the only meteorological station at a high elevation, 
there is a very heavy rainfall; from there it rapidly 
decreases as we advance westwards towards the interior, 
and also to the east, although not so much. It increases. 
again on the east coast. 
The Eucalyptus forests of the lowlands extend up to a 
height of about 5800 feet. Higher elevations are desti- 
tute of trees. On the upper margin of tree-growth the 
forest consists of very low and stunted trees belonging to 
the species Eucalyptus eth Se and £. Gunanzi. This 
Alpine forest resembles “ Krummbholz” of our Alps. 
2 T made the ascent of Mueller’s Peak, the height of which was trigono- 
metrically measured by the Victorian Geodetical Survey (Mr. Black), and 
Mount Townsend on the same day, and the height given above was calcu- 
lated from the aneroid readings on doth peaks. 
